FanFare
by Mercy19
Summary: Poetry sequence based on aspects of The Matrix trilogy


Usual disclaimers: I don't own any of the characters or settings and I'm not making a profit. 

**Fan_fare_**

"We think the most important sort of fiction attempts to answer some of the big questions... _The Matrix_ was an idea that we believe philosophy and religion and mathematics all try to answer. Which is a reconciling between the natural world and another world that is perceived by our intellect." Andy and Larry Wachowski in conversation. 

1.**Creation**

Will have a rocking soundtrack.   
Will be used for references for years to come. 

Use Descartes' "Brains in Vats" theory.   
We're all plugged into The Matrix. 

It's 1999. We will all be rescued.   
Some of us want to be plugged back in. 

Neo, someone ordinary Joe can I D with, wakes up.   
It's also the future aboard the Nebuchadnezzar. 

Captain Morpheus: guider, king of dreams.   
Trinity: brains, love interest? (keep Hollywood happy). 

How much control should we have?   
How much control will we have? 

2**.Actor**

You know what is a nice thought?   
Retirement.   
A hundred movies in the can   
and time to relax on a warm beach. 

I know the simple act of paying attention   
can get you a long way,   
but these guys take it to an extreme:   
pick up every nuance, every hesitation. 

I just give my character flesh,   
figure out what he thinks between speeches.   
These guys know what he dreams,   
fill the script's white spaces with them. 

Don't always get it right,   
but you want to applaud the effort.   
Then you begin to wonder where the line   
between dedication and obsession really falls. 

Then you think of that warm beach.   
That's what we've got to look forward to. 

3.**Fan**

Which is more seductive: the actor   
or the concept reality is just a dream? 

4.**Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations**: Machines Speak 

That virus that created us   
makes an adequate fuel supply. 

We gave you a happiness matrix.   
That was our only mistake. 

You can't live without misery.   
So we created repetitive cycles 

of work and leisure,   
a comfortable prison. 

There are renegades amongst you.   
But these are, overall, containable. 

5.**Mary Sue**

Who wants   
... to speak someone else's lines   
... to make their mistakes? 

I want   
... to be unplugged   
... to be unstereotyped. 

Might even settle for being the love interest. 

6.**Hurt/Comfort**

She watched him slowly regain atrophied muscles,   
fall from the roof (_but everyone falls first time_),   
not quite dodge the umpteenth bullet, get pummelled,   
believe in someone else while doubting himself. 

It took a kiss to stop the bullets. 

7.**Alternate**

Thomas Anderson crosses the window, doesn't look down   
(what made him think he could ever doubt Morpheus?),   
makes it onto Trinity's bike, soon lost in the crowds. 

Thomas Anderson/Neo takes the blue pill, wakes   
in his dishevelled apartment 101, the answer leeches   
away. Morpheus restarts his search. Trinity still watches. 

Neo doesn't believe the Oracle, reached   
but didn't grasp the no-spoon. The Agents would   
crack Morpheus. Can Zion be saved if it's breached? 

Neo dies. Trinity can't shake the taste of wormwood.   
The Sentinels' destruction, the ship's repairs   
and the resurrection are delayed until Part Two. 

8.**Cross-reality**: Trinity meets Miranda 

_The duty of every woman is to love._   
_Every hero has to be loved._   
_Why do you make it such a dilemma?_

Because... the Oracle... 

_It's a secret_   
_that you can't keep secret?_   
_Or do you fear he won't respond?_

I guess. But what if..? 

_How can he not respond?_   
_You face a brave new world._   
_You, whom every hacker wants to surpass._

Hacking's easy. Determination,   
curiosity. A love of code. 

_I fell in love at first sight._   
_He admired me, still does._   
_Why do you doubt?_

It matters. 

_You fear Cypher's jests?_   
_Surely not! You don't fear the other bugs_   
_in your love of program code._

He's not a program.   
He thought I was a man. 

_Don't they all?_   
_Why hold that against him?_   
_You deserve admiration, you'll get it._

9.**Missing Scenes**

I.**Neo in the Nightclub**

Was she for real?   
Neo props up a wall,   
watching the dancers.   
She knew the question that burns   
away at his periphery   
as he tries the nine-to-five,   
takes his landlady's trash out.   
The bass too loud to think against.   
She looked good. Honeytrap?   
Why would she risk capture? 

II.**Neo in a Coma**

There's a floating sensation:   
grip it.   
A red pill.   
A white rabbit.   
A battery farm.   
No. 

A bug   
splattered in a perspex tube.   
But no scar on my chest.   
The relentless sound of rain   
drumming like a million   
fingers on a keypad.   
That was real. 

Where's here?   
A ship floating   
floating above a battery farm.   
The sky was scorched.   
Could humans really do this? 

An interview room.   
Agents.   
My mouth gone.   
Whatisthematrix?   
My death? 

10.**Array**

Dream postively:   
gaining an award, making love,   
and the reaction will be different   
- albeit slightly - each time. 

But a nightmare repeats exact in every detail.   
Escaping, Trinity falls   
falls back firing two guns.   
A guard's bullet lodges in her heart. 

Neo shudders awake:the danger lies   
not in the bullet's metal but its target.   
How long can a war last?   
How long can a human fight? 

11.**Reloaded**

A captain trusts the Oracle:   
it has always been true for him. 

Neo learns the Oracle is a program:   
her info could be good or evil. 

Former agent Smith clones himself:   
a motiveless army of one. 

The Locksmith can open any door   
but not force entry. 

The Architect gives Neo a choice:   
save Trinity only or the whole of humanity. 

Can you trust a program?   
How pre-determined is free-will? 

12.**A Kiss: **Trinity speaks 

It's not even a real kiss.   
Two digitalised self-images'   
mouths meeting, tongues touching   
a mockery of love. 

A betrayal. 

A key to the Locksmith,   
a chance to win a war.   
Persephone: emotional vampire.   
Why does Neo allow this? 

My weakness: she knows it.   
I should be warrior-strong   
as I was before.   
I grip my gun. 

His dark eyes appeal: apology. 

Damn him. 

13.**Revolutions**

Smith's face contorts   
as he strives   
to keep his voice steady 

as he searches for a motive.   
The name Neo   
slips from his lips. 

Neo offers _choice_.   
Smith seeks to implode   
him with darkness. 

Neo explodes him with light. 

14.**A Kiss: reprise**

Merovingian can't feel   
the cold gunmetal   
I hold against his forehead,   
but he knows   
it's not an empty threat. 

Persephone knows it too:   
briefly my ally   
as her fear   
allows him dignity   
to accept my deal. 

I'm dealt Neo   
and a chance to say   
what I should have said   
when he tore the bullet   
from my heart. 

I'm no longer afraid. 

15.**Defence**

Posters cover the wallpaper,   
the soundtrack's on the stereo,   
PC's never switched off   
DVD backed up on the hard drive,   
spare black trenchcoat hangs on the door. 

It's not the foyer scene   
that's constantly replayed   
but the pill scene   
that gets woven into   
his perception of reality,   
he thinks: me or them,   
obtains a gun. 

  
A defence lawyer uses a movie   
to get a psychiatric report,   
a hospital sentence -   
_just doing her job_.   
A baffled father wishes   
his bullied son had spent as much time   
and obsession on nature or science. 

16.**Fanfic**

I'm as old as Bible stories,   
Greek myths, fairytales, legends   
and as young as the latest cult. 

I'm a resuscitator   
breathing life into the seven plots   
over and over again. 

I'm crucial:   
this need humans have   
to record and communicate. 

17.**Cyberspace**

****

Does the story finish when the credits roll? 


End file.
